Yeah its a weaker film in the MCU but its still very entertaining and it is easily the funniest of all the MCU films.
Iron Man 2 is not funnier than Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man 3 or Ant-Man.
Iron Man 2 is better in every possible way than GotG, and has a lot of moments that are pure genius, I'd say it holds the same ground as 3. Haven't seen Ant-Man.
Iron Man 2 is an amazing first act that seems to build up to something really cool. All the things up to the grand prix scene and the subsequent conversation in jail is great and should not be changed (with the exception of jettisoning the entire palladium poisoning plot and replacing it with the actual drinking problem it's clearly a metaphor for).
Then it takes a nosedive as soon as Hammer breaks Vanko out of jail. They went the wrong way with it. It should have been Vanko who reaches out to Hammer first and then proceed to do his master plan from within Hammer Industries instead of just rolling with the punches. Because the movie as it is has Vanko very publicly try to murder Tony Stark and then that's the extent of his plan, and then he becomes weird comic relief for half the movie until he peters out into a weaksauce villain in the finale.
Hammer's character was also confusingly written.
Here's what I would have done: after Vanko goes to jail, there's a cliché reporters outside the courthouse scene where he adresses the camera and sends some kind of coded message to Hammer, like he says something that's been alluded to earlier in the film (this is called foreshadowing). Then Hammer breaks him out of jail (and with hindsight, with just a hint of HYDRA participation, but that's a lot to ask for this early in the MCU). Then what happens is Hammer goes back to Senator Punchface and goes yo we really gotta get that Iron Man armor, and then a bunch of army dudes led by Rhodey are ordered to storm Tony's house and steal the armor from him. Tony is drunk at that moment and can't put up much of a fight so Rhodey walks off with the armor and the Warmachine suit. The original armor makes its way where else but in Hammer labs, in Vanko's hands.
At this point I should mention that the whole part with Hammer getting progressively more exasperated with Vanko doesn't exist in here. Vanko is playing Hammer and keeping his hand close to his chest. You can still have funny Russian antics! He wants his burd.
Losing his armor and his friend and also Pepper's respect drives Tony to drink even more, so we get to the birthday party, where Rhodey shows up looking to explain and make amends and he was under orders and everything. Tony is pissed and also super drunk at this point and he gets out his secret Mark Two armor with the triangle chestpiece and starts being an asshole with it and Rhodey is all YO YOU CAN'T DO THAT so he pulls out the Warmachine suit he already has at this point and tries to stop him and that scene now makes sense in the middle of that movie instead of coming out of fucking nowhere. At this point Rhodey manages to subdue Tony Stark (HE'S DRUNK) and puts him under arrest.
Then we get back to the whole subplot about that old video with Howard Stark only it has absolutely nothing to do with palladium or inventing a new element (argh). Tony sees his dad getting progressively more drunk as the video goes on, starts to realize hey that's fucked up and at the end Howard is all melancholy drunk and opens up and says all he's doing is for Tony and he hopes Tony will be a better guy than he is. THIS IS NOW THE BIG EPIPHANY.
Meanwhile, Stark Expo, Hammer pulls out his new armors to show to everyone but you know who isn't there? Rhodey. You know who is there? Vanko in his own super armor he built off the original Iron Man suit which he's showing off as the piece of resistance to command all the auto-armors (Hammer doesn't know Vanko is in the suit and thinks it's just the guy who was supposed to demo the armor). Then everything goes to shit as it does in the movie but Rhodey's not there! He's having a chat with Tony in jail because despite everything he still considers him a friend.
That's when Nick Fury and Black Widow enter the picture (or earlier when Tony's first arrested) and they're the ones that get the news about shit going down at Stark Expo, and Rhodey goes all I'M GOING and then Tony's like ME TOO and everyone is like you sure you can do this? And Tony says yeah I can do this let's be partners there's like 15 robots out there you need both of us in the field. So SHIELD lets Tony go in his NEW MARK TWO ARMOR WITH THE TRIANGLE CHESTPIECE NOW WITH LESS DRUNK.
Final battle and Vanko doesn't go down ridiculously easy and it's better.
There, now let's go back in time and make that movie.
they just needed some kind of moment of catharsis related to the plot point about ivan vankho/howard stark; it's introduced as vankho's motivation and then just completely left hanging
like, a guy who looks suspiciously like anton should have shown up in the video reel being friendly with howard, or something
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
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FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
imo tony should apologize to vanko and build a statue for his dad and vanko is redeemed and joins shield and makes falcon's suit
I'd have at least liked to see them have Tony make some gesture of compassion towards the man his family fucked over, some indication that he knew he couldn't just say "I'm better now and blew up some badguys to prove it" and thereby erase a legacy of callous disregard for suffering.
They could have still had Vanko throw it back in Tony's face, making a battle inevitable, but the redemptive effort should have been there.
The actors who play Hawkman, Hawkgirl, and Vandal Savage are bad
The characters of the Hawks and their entire thing is fucking gross and comes across as abusive
These things are too distracting. I am going to pass on it for now.
You know, I was kinda offput a little bit by those two but I had a hard time articulating it. I didn't specifically get an abusive vibe, but definitely kind of a piggish crappy attitude by HM.
Also Dr Stein pulling a Hannibal Smith on his teammate. Not cool, dude.
Canary, CC and Heatwave are all great, though.
I love how, in the barfight, Heatwave smashes the stool for no reason and then just starts punching dudes.
Overall I felt the writing and presentation of it was a little too cheesy for me. Main character especially was overdramatic as hell (Silly poses, forced one-liners) and never gets called out on it. In Arrow, the main cast recognizes Palmer for the gigantic dork that he is, which I feel is important.
When the characters don't acknowledge stuff like that in the story it comes off like you're not expected to notice. And that drives me crazy.
Goatmon on
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
I just finished reading Sandman: Overture
That's a rad book
J.H. Williams III really knocks it out of the park, he's a damn near perfect illustrator for Sandman stuff
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GustavFriend of GoatsSomewhere in the OzarksRegistered Userregular
Oh rad! I wasn't aware Overture wrapped up. I'll have to pick that up.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Yup, there's a deluxe hardcover out now
I do have a kind of weird question, if anyone else has read it, preferably in singles
There's this whole big thing from Todd Klein at the end talking about how he was working with a lot of translucent speech bubbles in order to show off Williams' art
And the examples given seem to suggest that this was a thing that was actually implemented in the book, but there are only one or two translucent speech bubble sections, and it's all character appropriate stuff
Was it printed this way in the single issues as well? Did they darken the speech bubbles up for some reason for the collected edition?
Dr. Stein in the LoT pilot did a crappy thing but at least he owned it
hawkman has been being kind of a jerk and/or creeper for as long as he's been around basically, and it's weird that shaira/kendra is apparently meant to be kinda warming up to him
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
The actors who play Hawkman, Hawkgirl, and Vandal Savage are bad
The characters of the Hawks and their entire thing is fucking gross and comes across as abusive
These things are too distracting. I am going to pass on it for now.
You know, I was kinda offput a little bit by those two but I had a hard time articulating it. I didn't specifically get an abusive vibe, but definitely kind of a piggish crappy attitude by HM.
Also Dr Stein pulling a Hannibal Smith on his teammate. Not cool, dude.
Canary, CC and Heatwave are all great, though.
I love how, in the barfight, Heatwave smashes the stool for no reason and then just starts punching dudes.
Overall I felt the writing and presentation of it was a little too cheesy for me. Main character especially was overdramatic as hell (Silly poses, forced one-liners) and never gets called out on it. In Arrow, the main cast recognizes Palmer for the gigantic dork that he is, which I feel is important.
When the characters don't acknowledge stuff like that in the story it comes off like you're not expected to notice. And that drives me crazy.
Heatwave didn't actually just break it for no reason, he hit someone with it.
They haven't dropped that yet and it is really annoying me
Yeah, Spencer probably should have had him revert back in-between #3 and 4. It was funny for one issue but now it's undercutting the excellent writing.
They haven't dropped that yet and it is really annoying me
Yeah, Spencer probably should have had him revert back in-between #3 and 4. It was funny for one issue but now it's undercutting the excellent writing.
It feels like an inside joke for the creative team and nobody else
I liked Legends (CC is great and smug as always), I did have a few issues with it though. The roofie thing was definitely bad, but the bar fight seemed really weird. I mean...I'm not a bar guy, I don't know how things usually go in there, let alone in 1975. But a dude just walks up to a woman in the middle of the bar, in the middle of the afternoon, grabs her and says "let's go out to the parking lot"? Like, surely there's a more subtle way to start a bar fight scene than putting signs on the guys saying "Turns out you just walked into the Rape Bar".
And yea, the way Hawkman remembers thousands of years worth of lifetimes and Hawkgirl remembers almost nothing is doing bad things for how that relationship gets written, I think.
They haven't dropped that yet and it is really annoying me
Yeah, Spencer probably should have had him revert back in-between #3 and 4. It was funny for one issue but now it's undercutting the excellent writing.
It feels like an inside joke for the creative team and nobody else
That's...not entirely true.
There's actually a fairly famous arc of Captain America where he became CapWolf and this is a giant nod to that.
I totally get it if people aren't aware/into it but Spencer is acknowledging a fairly notable Captain America arc with this stuff.
I had a nightmare that the new thunderbolts looked like fucking stupid poorly drawn 90's throwback
well time to get caught up on comics news
oooh noooooooooo
Presented for your consideration, a man in the grip of a nightmare he just can't escape.
Furu. An ordinary forum poster, with an ordinary taste for Marvel's brand of serialized entertainment. But tonight, he's about to put that taste to the test.
Because his latest trip to the comic store is in... The Twilight Zone.
I'm a pretty fan of Superman, as am idea
People call me Clark Kent at work
I have a Superman shirt
Etc
I'll try Morrison's Action Comics
I remember thinking Superman/Batman was good and kind of the fun kind of goofy. And it would make a good rebuttal to the coming looks like its going to be shit stain on the red trunks of a movie.
DouglasDanger on
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The GeekOh-Two Crew, OmeganautRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited January 2016
Some great background jokes and puns on a recent episode of Teen Titans Go!
Speaking of Morrison I re-read the Invisibles on a whim and man I really am fond of that series
The narrative is incoherent to the point of being nigh-on unfollowable at times, mostly because I assume GMO was on an insane amount of acid when he wrote it
but conceptually it's really smart and inventive and I think it has a certain scope and bombast to it which GMO always captures very well.
I know people consider it to be pretentious and wanky but I don't think it is, really, Jack Frost's character is kind of like his internal reminder to just say something that makes sense for God's sake
I'm a pretty fan of Superman, as am idea
People call me Clark Kent at work
I have a Superman shirt
Etc
I'll try Morrison's Action Comics
I remember thinking Superman/Batman was good and kind of the fun kind of goofy. And it would make a good rebuttal to the coming looks like its going to be shit stain on the red trunks of a movie.
If I may offer a dissenting opinion I think Morrison's action comics is great. It does have some weak issues where the core artist for the run couldn't finish in time so some fillar had to be created. Some of it was really good but filler is filler.
Posts
If you want weird weird, Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier vol 1m
Iron Man 2 is better in every possible way than GotG, and has a lot of moments that are pure genius, I'd say it holds the same ground as 3. Haven't seen Ant-Man.
Then it takes a nosedive as soon as Hammer breaks Vanko out of jail. They went the wrong way with it. It should have been Vanko who reaches out to Hammer first and then proceed to do his master plan from within Hammer Industries instead of just rolling with the punches. Because the movie as it is has Vanko very publicly try to murder Tony Stark and then that's the extent of his plan, and then he becomes weird comic relief for half the movie until he peters out into a weaksauce villain in the finale.
Hammer's character was also confusingly written.
Here's what I would have done: after Vanko goes to jail, there's a cliché reporters outside the courthouse scene where he adresses the camera and sends some kind of coded message to Hammer, like he says something that's been alluded to earlier in the film (this is called foreshadowing). Then Hammer breaks him out of jail (and with hindsight, with just a hint of HYDRA participation, but that's a lot to ask for this early in the MCU). Then what happens is Hammer goes back to Senator Punchface and goes yo we really gotta get that Iron Man armor, and then a bunch of army dudes led by Rhodey are ordered to storm Tony's house and steal the armor from him. Tony is drunk at that moment and can't put up much of a fight so Rhodey walks off with the armor and the Warmachine suit. The original armor makes its way where else but in Hammer labs, in Vanko's hands.
At this point I should mention that the whole part with Hammer getting progressively more exasperated with Vanko doesn't exist in here. Vanko is playing Hammer and keeping his hand close to his chest. You can still have funny Russian antics! He wants his burd.
Losing his armor and his friend and also Pepper's respect drives Tony to drink even more, so we get to the birthday party, where Rhodey shows up looking to explain and make amends and he was under orders and everything. Tony is pissed and also super drunk at this point and he gets out his secret Mark Two armor with the triangle chestpiece and starts being an asshole with it and Rhodey is all YO YOU CAN'T DO THAT so he pulls out the Warmachine suit he already has at this point and tries to stop him and that scene now makes sense in the middle of that movie instead of coming out of fucking nowhere. At this point Rhodey manages to subdue Tony Stark (HE'S DRUNK) and puts him under arrest.
Then we get back to the whole subplot about that old video with Howard Stark only it has absolutely nothing to do with palladium or inventing a new element (argh). Tony sees his dad getting progressively more drunk as the video goes on, starts to realize hey that's fucked up and at the end Howard is all melancholy drunk and opens up and says all he's doing is for Tony and he hopes Tony will be a better guy than he is. THIS IS NOW THE BIG EPIPHANY.
Meanwhile, Stark Expo, Hammer pulls out his new armors to show to everyone but you know who isn't there? Rhodey. You know who is there? Vanko in his own super armor he built off the original Iron Man suit which he's showing off as the piece of resistance to command all the auto-armors (Hammer doesn't know Vanko is in the suit and thinks it's just the guy who was supposed to demo the armor). Then everything goes to shit as it does in the movie but Rhodey's not there! He's having a chat with Tony in jail because despite everything he still considers him a friend.
That's when Nick Fury and Black Widow enter the picture (or earlier when Tony's first arrested) and they're the ones that get the news about shit going down at Stark Expo, and Rhodey goes all I'M GOING and then Tony's like ME TOO and everyone is like you sure you can do this? And Tony says yeah I can do this let's be partners there's like 15 robots out there you need both of us in the field. So SHIELD lets Tony go in his NEW MARK TWO ARMOR WITH THE TRIANGLE CHESTPIECE NOW WITH LESS DRUNK.
Final battle and Vanko doesn't go down ridiculously easy and it's better.
There, now let's go back in time and make that movie.
Oh, is that the weird one with Bucky in space?
like, a guy who looks suspiciously like anton should have shown up in the video reel being friendly with howard, or something
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I'd have at least liked to see them have Tony make some gesture of compassion towards the man his family fucked over, some indication that he knew he couldn't just say "I'm better now and blew up some badguys to prove it" and thereby erase a legacy of callous disregard for suffering.
They could have still had Vanko throw it back in Tony's face, making a battle inevitable, but the redemptive effort should have been there.
No
The actors who play Hawkman, Hawkgirl, and Vandal Savage are bad
The characters of the Hawks and their entire thing is fucking gross and comes across as abusive
These things are too distracting. I am going to pass on it for now.
You know, I was kinda offput a little bit by those two but I had a hard time articulating it. I didn't specifically get an abusive vibe, but definitely kind of a piggish crappy attitude by HM.
Also Dr Stein pulling a Hannibal Smith on his teammate. Not cool, dude.
Canary, CC and Heatwave are all great, though.
I love how, in the barfight, Heatwave smashes the stool for no reason and then just starts punching dudes.
Overall I felt the writing and presentation of it was a little too cheesy for me. Main character especially was overdramatic as hell (Silly poses, forced one-liners) and never gets called out on it. In Arrow, the main cast recognizes Palmer for the gigantic dork that he is, which I feel is important.
When the characters don't acknowledge stuff like that in the story it comes off like you're not expected to notice. And that drives me crazy.
That's a rad book
J.H. Williams III really knocks it out of the park, he's a damn near perfect illustrator for Sandman stuff
I do have a kind of weird question, if anyone else has read it, preferably in singles
There's this whole big thing from Todd Klein at the end talking about how he was working with a lot of translucent speech bubbles in order to show off Williams' art
And the examples given seem to suggest that this was a thing that was actually implemented in the book, but there are only one or two translucent speech bubble sections, and it's all character appropriate stuff
Was it printed this way in the single issues as well? Did they darken the speech bubbles up for some reason for the collected edition?
Because Saga is straight up one of the craziest things being printed right now, and it's super good.
They haven't dropped that yet and it is really annoying me
hawkman has been being kind of a jerk and/or creeper for as long as he's been around basically, and it's weird that shaira/kendra is apparently meant to be kinda warming up to him
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Heatwave didn't actually just break it for no reason, he hit someone with it.
Yeah, Spencer probably should have had him revert back in-between #3 and 4. It was funny for one issue but now it's undercutting the excellent writing.
It feels like an inside joke for the creative team and nobody else
And yea, the way Hawkman remembers thousands of years worth of lifetimes and Hawkgirl remembers almost nothing is doing bad things for how that relationship gets written, I think.
There's actually a fairly famous arc of Captain America where he became CapWolf and this is a giant nod to that.
I totally get it if people aren't aware/into it but Spencer is acknowledging a fairly notable Captain America arc with this stuff.
well time to get caught up on comics news
oooh noooooooooo
Presented for your consideration, a man in the grip of a nightmare he just can't escape.
Furu. An ordinary forum poster, with an ordinary taste for Marvel's brand of serialized entertainment. But tonight, he's about to put that taste to the test.
Because his latest trip to the comic store is in... The Twilight Zone.
Why I fear the ocean.
But they fucked it up so bad
All three of those guys are clearly Coreys.
I have All-Star Superman, and just ordered Birthright.
Is that Grant Morrison relaunch from a few years ago, with Superman in blue jeans, good?
My recommendation would be Superman: Secret Identity
It got less good, to the point of being pretty average
People call me Clark Kent at work
I have a Superman shirt
Etc
I'll try Morrison's Action Comics
I remember thinking Superman/Batman was good and kind of the fun kind of goofy. And it would make a good rebuttal to the coming looks like its going to be shit stain on the red trunks of a movie.
These are boxes in their attic.
Almost did a spit take at this one.
The narrative is incoherent to the point of being nigh-on unfollowable at times, mostly because I assume GMO was on an insane amount of acid when he wrote it
but conceptually it's really smart and inventive and I think it has a certain scope and bombast to it which GMO always captures very well.
I know people consider it to be pretentious and wanky but I don't think it is, really, Jack Frost's character is kind of like his internal reminder to just say something that makes sense for God's sake
(And then I'll go back to buying Marvel stuff)
If I may offer a dissenting opinion I think Morrison's action comics is great. It does have some weak issues where the core artist for the run couldn't finish in time so some fillar had to be created. Some of it was really good but filler is filler.